The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-07-09
TIL MAS HOOD.
BY REV. w. A. PRATT.
Cedar Rapids, Iowa.)

In the literature Of the reign of Queen
Victoria we find the name of Thomas
Hood. In the memory of the English
people it is name that long will be
cherished, for the songs he sung were
the songs of the heart. The life story
of every man is best told by himself;
and while Hood has left no autobiog-
raphy for succeeding ages to study, he
has given us an insight into his career
in what are known as his Literary
"Reminiscences
He was born in the city of London
as the sun of the last century was set
ting. Early deprived by death Of his
father, he was left to grow into that
sad manhood that knows but little of a
fathers love and$friendly counsel. His
education was commenced, he said, in
one of those PLACES called semi-naries-
because they ne7 half teach anything
continued in a&nishing school where
he had to comme4ce everything at the
beginning -and ded in high school,
SO designated beause it was located
over grocer's hop up two pairs of
stairs.
Leaving school be entered mercantile
life but his heaMh failed. AS he hui
morously puts It'll In the language of
the Price Curren it was expected that
1 must submit to- decline. The doc
tors declared thai % much sitting upon
the mercantile ool would hatch
brood of compIa nts." A change of
climate was ady{ed, and he went to
Dundee. There In made his first ac-
quaintance with H|&rature. Returning
to London, after s5fying short appren-
ticeship as an ez1 Arer, he became the
SUBJ editor of ssThe London Magazine. .
He was brought by this into close
association with Lamb, Coleridge, and
others, whose names take high rank
among the literati of that time. He
wrote tender tribute in memory of
Lamb, and also recorded many of the
pithy sayings of Coleridge. "Coleridge
spoke of the strange notions some lit
eral minded persons form of the joys of
heaven. There are, he says, people
who place the whole angelic beatitude
in the possession of pair of wings to
flap about with, a sort of celestial poul-
try"
In the poems of Hood we find the
most touching pathos and sparkling
humor. What an exquisite gem is that
which gathers up all the memories of
childhood days, commencing:
II remember, remember,
The house where was born;
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn.
He never came wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day;
But now often wish the night
Had borne my breath away"
The dream of Eugene Aram empha-
sizes the lesson that the Universalist
church has made prominent in its
teaching, that guilt is its own dark
avenging Nemesis, and that to him who
stains his hands in a brothers. blood
even the very stones will cry out in ac-
cusation against him, and the whisper
ing winds become so many voices Of
terror. 1t is the lesson that such men
do not wait for another life ere they
suffer the torments of hell, for they
carry that hell in their own bosoms,
hell more terrible than the pen of Dante
or the brush of Angelo ever painted.
England had terrible suffering among
her working classes fifty years ago. The
condition of the sewing women was
most pitiable. The longest day of Ia
Dor at the miserable pittance paid,
would hardly keep soul and body to-
gether. They must beg, sell their vir-
tue, or starve. In those terrible times,
when the aristocracy Of England were
preparing to celebrate, with feast and
song, the advent of the Saviour, in the
Christmas number of the London Punch,
appeared Hoods "Song of the Shirt"
1t made its appeal to the hearts of the
English people and aroused them to
extend the hand of generous sympathy
and help.
But Hood perhaps is best known by
his humorous songs. There is an un-
dercurrent of truth beneath all his wit
ticisms, and they are devoid of every
thing that savors of the artificial.
Hood sung his cheerful songs when
his own frame was racked by the most
intense suffering. He advocated and
practiced a cheerful philosophy. Ashe
grew old he said, II have retained my
shadow and sold my substance. In
short as happens to prematurely old
port wine, 1 am of bad color with
varv little hodv.D In his last sickness